Pages

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

With 2015 almost done and dusted, it’s the usual time to look back and see what you accomplished , or not as the case may be. And then look forward to what is planned in 2016.

Looking back, the year has just flown by. Blog wise, I pretty much stopped blogging this year and focused on work and home life separation, as it had turned into a blurry mess of stress. Creating a work desk in the spare room was the game changer. Now I have a small room for hobby stuff …( no work aloud). Then separating my work email and personal email was also a huge help, so I couldn’t get distracted by work emails while talking to the lads and planning gaming session etc on the weekends. It took a few months of retraining myself and organizing the distinct separation of my work and personal stuff , but I’m a happier man and thus wife is also happier. It’s not that easy to do when you spend quite a bit of time working from home. So all in all a very successful year on the work/home front.

Gaming wise, oh my god .. did I get a lot of plastic this year or what. Hail Caesar saw the table a lot and my army list expanded somewhat, followed by Pike and Shotte (Which I didn’t actually add to this year)

X-wing and Start Trek Attack Wing both saw some big epic scale games, which I think we will have to repeat in 2016. Judge Dread made a big impact at the South Auckland club as we all got into that for a small campaign.

I bought into Black Powder rule set with ACW army, and also ended up picking up boxes on a great sale for AWI and also Saga. So plenty or armies to build and paint in 2016.

Bolt Action was a big hit this year seeing regular play and the usual Field of Glory was played a lot at the beginning of the year.

I did get a lot of painting done in the first half of the year and bugger all in the last half. My Greeks for Hail Caesar were the most fun to paint and I have half the army fully painted now.

Overall it was a quit year compared to previous years, which is a good thing,

Looking forward into 2016.

Gaming wise the goal is pretty simple, play the games I have.

Yep, I counted the rule sets I have, all 48 of them. Only nine of which I don’t have any models for….(yet)

A Fistful of Kung Fu

Anima Tactics

Battletech

Black Powder

Bolt Action

Bushido

Dark Age

Dr Who

DreadBall

Drop Zone

Dungeon and Dragons Attack Wing

Dust Tactics

Empire of the Dead

Field of Glory Ancients

Field of Glory Napoleonic

Field of Glory Renaissance

Firestorm Armada

Flames of War

Gladiators

Hail Caesar Army

Heavy Gear

Hell Dorado

Hordes

In Her Majesty’s Name

Infinity

Judge Dread

Kings of War

Legends of the High Seas

Legends of the Wild West

Malifaux

Mob Wars

Of Gods and Mortals

Pike and Shotte

Ronin

Saga

Start Trek Attack Wing

Trafalgar

Uncharted Seas

War Machine

War Master Ancients

Warhammer

Warhammer 40K

Warhammer Ancient Battles

Warhammer Chariot Wars

Waterloo

Wild West exodus

Wings of Glory

X-Wing

Now I realize that some of these games are dead or in the dying stages, but as I’ve learnt over the years, these games have a surprising habit of re-surfing . First up is BattlteTech, I really want to get some games played in 2016, an all-time favorite of mine, a real time consumer for sure, but its always been fun to play. After that I think the long lost kin of Legends of the Wild west … Legends of the High Sea’s would be my next pick, really want to see my pirate ships in action. Ronin and Bushido are high on my play list for next year as well, with my Japanese terrain collection starting to grow these games will look awesome.

On the painting front, I just want to get into the grove and start painting a little every week.

Photography wise, that’s also simple, get out there and have fun shooting.

Oh yeah, and then there are the board games. 2015 was hugely lacking in board games, so revitalizing play is top of the list.

(Especially after today…got smashed by the wife at my new board game… twice)

and yes, proof I've actually being doing some modeling and building terrain :-)

Friday, December 25, 2015

Having a Norwegian Wife, we celebrate Christmas on the eve with her family, and then have Christmas day the following with my family, which works out rather well, as we never get any conflicts.

But this year with my family all over the place I got to spend Christmas at home, sleep in, open more presents, have an afternoon nap and put together some of my Xmas gifts.

The Christmas loot has been good this year, with a little help with from myself on a few extra things.

So gaming wise I got a new board game which looks like a good fun.

A 2-8 player game which is unusual for a board game to cover that many players.

My awesome wife got me some terrain from Renedra which will work perfectly for ACW and quite a few other games as well. The Ramshackle Barn along with the stone and cross fence. The barn is already built and on a base, undercoated and ready for painting.

I picked up the Kings of War supplement book “Uncharted Empires” along with finally getting around to acquiring a copy of the Saga rules, since I have two boxes of Vikings on my desk for this.

I’m pretty sure the Viking dice are the most expensive dice I’ve ever bought, but its Christmas, so whaooo.

Then our local suppler had started stocking some of the Plast Craft Pre-Cut buildings, so I picked up a Fukei Building for my Japanese terrain to try it out. They have some cool looking walls, what would add a lot to my terrain collection, so I’ll see how this first buiding goes before getting more.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

A quite days gaming today, with just three of us usual suspects around at Marks. Well maybe it was more like two and half, with Mark' current bad back, he was hobbling around in quite a bit of pain. Fingers crossed the next round of treatment starts to get him some relief.

So we busted out our first couple of games of Empire of the Dead. I've had Captain Nemo and his crew for quite some time, when I got them off Will's fanatical purchase of the Kickstarter. Now Will had gotten into the kickstarter and also got a bunch of buildings at the same time. We didnt actually realize how much he had. So when Will unboxed it all onto the table that already had my City Block buildings on it ...(Holy crap) we now have a full city table and then some, just needs a bit of paint on some buildings. Even without paint it looked awesome.

First game was all three of us playing with our chosen factions on the table as we went through the rules and found our feet with the game. Then Mark was off getting his Werewolf geek on ( Mark had gone with the Werewolf pack) and helping with the rules as Will and I had another game ... very short game it was as I found out how effective rifles and a little good rolling can do, as Will utterly annihilated me... A little adjustment of my list is in order. But still its a good way to learn the rules.

Some more discussion and a bit more planning and we are going to roll out a small campaign over the Christmas break.

Friday, December 18, 2015

Are yes,
the ever increasing list of gaming projects, which I just added some more buildings to last week from Sarrisa. Every year I add more and more
little projects and sometimes large projects to the ever increasing number of
games. So this Christmas holidays, (Last week doesn't count cos I'm still working) I’ve decided to stomp on that habit, and
actually pick up a bunch of those projects that have been sitting around half
finished for months and even years in some cases.

The other reason is that I’m
getting Mark to paint my ACW, so my gaming funds are all going into that. My
list of projects could be very long and depressing, so I’ve gone with just a
few that I’m likely to get finished and should also be fun. First up is a nice
easy one to finish off, my Japanese 4ground buildings, which I have two still
in the unopened bags and one half built. These can be used for a bunch of
games, including Bushido, which Mark and I haven’t gotten around to playing
yet.

The main
project I want to finish is my Pirate Ship which I got a few years back after
having a blast playing Jason in a few games of Pirates of the High Sea’s.

After that
I have three units of 15mm Japanese Samurai for FOG Renaissance in the basing
stage, so should be another quick easy one to complete…. God knows how many
other units for this army I still have in the draw. If I get the three finished
I may be inspired to complete my Egyptian army that I’m meant to use in next
years Battlecry, so that’s going to be my forth project to try and complete.

Beyond that I'm not holding my breath on what I'll get done.

So far this week I have managed to complete another unit of my Greeks for Hail Cesar as there were almost finished anyway.

And I've already got alot more done on the Pirate ship this week, deck is down and mast's in. Still alot to do, but its now table worthy. Pictures have a few models for Empire of the Dead which we are playing for the first time on Sunday.

Monday, December 14, 2015

Saturday past saw the last South Auckland Wargaming Club day. It was our mass ECW game, which proved to be the biggest game at the club yet. (well at least the biggest I've been to past few years). We were using the Warlord Games, Pike and Shotte rule set with 6 of us having armies to combine.

The setup was a small table of 6 foot by 16 foot with some scattered terrain around the edges and a farm and village right smack in the center. With a few new gamers on the scene, and a couple of people without models we split up the forces and took sides.

The estimates were we had over 3000 models on the table, which I'm going to confirm later on in the week. Here's my bad attempt at putting together three photos to show the whole table.

Let the carnage begin

After the sides were selected and the battle plans put in place, we started into it.

The Parliamentary team (which I was on) decided to leave one end of the battle field with a thin resistance force while we pile on the devastation at the other end and then wrap around to consume the remainder of the royalist forces. So with a huge Cavalry deployment down one end and Jason commanding our resistance force at the other, we got underway

Kevin's Scots and my forces took the town and prepared to defend it. With not knowing the building rules well at all, our first blunder was to put our storming parties in the buildings . wont do that again.

Meanwhile Jason was valiantly resisting the overwhelming odds.

The carnage started in the town

My first storming party taking its first victory and defending the building against over whelming odds... with a bit of luck from the dice gods, they survived a couple more turns before falling.

The cavalry battle stood still for the first few turns as the canons pounded at each other.

The town turned into a blood bath or pike slaughter.

The main battle group finally got their butts moving, as did the Cavalry.

Lunch time came and went, as the tides turned and twisted. My army broke and began to retreat but held on long enough to break Mark's Royalists, then Bryan's Royalist cavalry also broke. Jason's resistance finally broke on our flank with the onslaught of numbers. Leaving Kevin just enough time to break Saul's army. Forcing the Royalists to concede.